


a falter and a failure

by seventhstar



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Ending, Everyone is Dead, Gen, Suicide, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an unhappy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a falter and a failure

He awakes to no one.

The ground is rough beneath him; the smooth concrete and asphalt of Heartland City’s roads has been destroyed. There are holes torn out of the streets and boulders blocking the way; cars and storefronts crushed by falling rock, as gravitational force varied wildly all across the city during the battle. At least, Yuuma thinks it went across the city. It could be more.

The whole world might look like this now. It would be dangerous, if there were anyone else around. But the darkened city is silent. Yuuma’s eyes, and ears and heart are all empty.

++++++

_“Direct attack!”_

_Hope swung his axe down, glowing with the power of the newly equipped Zexal Weapon, and Alit screamed as it tore through the last of his life points and sent him flying. He hit the dirt hard._

_Yuuma separated from Astral and ran to his side. Alit’s eyes had begun to clear near the end of the duel, his old personality remerging. Maybe he would recognize Yuuma as his rival and not his enemy now. Maybe he would understand – Yuuma didn’t want to fight._

_But as he knelt down beside Alit, he saw the wound in his chest. There was a spiderweb of cracks spread out from the crater, light seeping through the cracks like blood from a gash._

_“Yuuma,” Alit gasped. His eyes were wide with fear, and he gripped Yuuma’s wrist so hard the bones creaked. The conviction in his voice was so strong that Yuuma could nothing but listen. “Defeat him. Defeat Don…”_

_He crumbled to gravel before he could finish._

++++++

Alit’s duel disk shows up at the school, in what might be Yuuma’s old classroom; it’s hard to tell with the furniture smashed and the roof caved in. It’s orange and pink and scuffed from battle. Yuuma doesn’t know what to do with it – what kind of memorial can he give Alit here, so far away from where he belonged – so he takes it to the school pool and drops it into the water. It sinks down into the darkness with a faint clang.

++++++

_Silent Honors: Dark Knight died in a flash of light, and the sound of Nasch’s life points ticking down to nothing was all that there was._

_“Yuuma,” Nasch gasped._

_He fell to his knees as the world flickered and the duel ended, and Yuuma moved towards him._

_He wanted to hold Nasch, to comfort him, and make him understand. Yuuma was going to help him! He was going to save his world, too!_

_But Nasch did not respond to Yuuma’s cries as he ran to his side, and when Yuuma rolled him over, it was too late. Nasch had been dead at zero, before he even hit the ground, and Yuuma’s words were worthless to him now._

++++++

Shark’s necklace is lying in the plaza. Yuuma only recognizes it because of the crumpled train that marks where the station once was; the monorail tracks have shielded this place, just a little, and there are a few square meters of untouched ground. Yuuma looks down, to pretend the city is as it was all around him, and sees the battered steel fang. The picture is damaged; only Shark’s parents’ faces remain. Yuuma throws it through one of the broken train windows as he leaves.

++++++

_Kaito looked grotesque fused with Don Thousand’s body; the enormous eye that had burst out of his stomach, the wings that had cut through the skin of his back in a spray of blood as they grew, the horns that deformed his skull._

_But his voice was unchanged. “This is the end, Yuuma.”_

_Yuuma wanted to cover his ears, just to block the sound of Don Thousand’s mocking words coming out of his friend’s mouth. Instead he drew his card with bloody fingers._

_“Shining Draw!” Inside him, Astral drew with him. Their power resonated, and built upon itself, and what came out of their beck glowed so brightly that it burned away the pain. Kaito howled with pain as the force of their draw tore chunks of flesh from his body._

_“I activate Rank Up Magic: Zexal Force!”_

++++++

Orbital 7 is long deactivated when Yuuma finds him, mangled by Heartland Tower as it collapsed. Only his head is really intact, the lights in his cameras gone, and Yuuma tries futilely to get him out of the mangled remains of a Tower. He’s not strong enough to bend steel or move stone, though, and in the end he gets a rock and beats Orbital’s head until it comes free of his neck. It’s unrecognizable by the time he is done; he hides it in the shadows and continues on.

++++++

_“Why, Astral?”_

_Yuuma couldn’t stop crying._

_“Why are you doing this?”_

_“If you won’t help me destroy the Barian World, Yuuma,” Astral pressed a button on his duel disk and one of his set cards flipped over. Gagaga Magician groaned as he was sent from Yuuma’s field to the graveyard. “then you’re my enemy.”_

_“Don’t do this!” Yuuma’s hand was almost empty, and he was running out of cards in his deck. This draw might be his last. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”_

_“I’ll send you to join Kaito and Shark soon, Yuuma.” Astral said._

_Yuuma looked down at what he had drawn. It had come, his trump card, the card that would win him the duel._

_Astral’s eyes were cold. Yuuma closed his own against the sight of Astral’s life point meter, so that he wouldn’t have to watch what was coming, and played._

++++++

Yuuma’s house is crushed flat when he finally arrives there, and he has to climb over a fallen tree to get to what must have once been the attic. All his possessions are dust. His father’s treasures are smashed, the mask III liked so much in three pieces, his hammock covered in broken glass from one of the windows. The Key is there, among the shards, and it has a sharp edge, and Yuuma has been wandering around the city for what feels like a lifetime, all alone…

…in the silence…

…and the point is cold against his throat, and he pushes it in, seeking warm blood, so he can hear the blood spatter if nothing else and –


End file.
